It feels like everyone outside of DC moved on to other things long ago but the District is still under active occupation ostensibly because of one of these bros.
14.03.2026 03:11
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It feels like everyone outside of DC moved on to other things long ago but the District is still under active occupation ostensibly because of one of these bros.
I have a pet theory that a lot of this stems from "get your bag" culture where bad behavior is excusable as long your took a big corporation's money. I want to go back to the days when "selling out" was socially destructive.
Event ticketing is a solved problem. Almost every other developed country has figured this out. The one critical thing you need is a government that's not completely captured by corporations to do actual regulation.
Pre-covid there was a tour from (I think) the Union Station Redevelopment Corp that ran every few months and went into all of these rooms. Lots of cool history in there.
Millions of dollars to get a pic of the vroom vroom cars in front of the Capitol dome is what happens when the admin only cares about hashtag content.
Discourse I've seen so far:
Sure it's going to be disruptive to local life and cause traffic headaches for weeks but at least the big racing buffs will also hate it and make fun of the course relentlessly.
Yeah, I've mentioned the botched news release to NPS staff on the ground. They all seem frustratedly aware of the problem but they have no mechanism to fix it.
El*n M*sk went to town on NPS (for what reason?) and they haven't had a confirmed Director yet for 2.0. I can't be mad at everybody at NPS in the trenches trying to do their best possible job. They're being set up to fail from the top.
This stuff matters because local news ran the press release as accurate and reported that the WWII Memorial is closing. www.wusa9.com/article/news...
NPS communications are a complete mess. They still have an inaccurate news release up from January about the WWII Memorial closing down (it never did). www.nps.gov/nama/learn/n...
My tour guide opinion here is that they waited too long and now the monuments are going to look terrible for peak spring break (WWII covered in yellow police tape, for example).
Also - tourists are still big mad about losing Circulator and $120M could have funded it for half a decade.
The FDR Memorial fountains haven't yet been touched. The WWII Memorial is currently just a bunch of yellow police tape with no work happening.
Yet the Korean War Memorial (which was JUST renovated in 2022 and seemed to be fine?) is undergoing heavy work.
And the price tag is $120 million? 🤡
I've said it before but America250 should be an absolute windfall for DC and DC tourism. Instead it's become an excuse for dog and pony shows while small businesses are fighting for their lives.
There is an extremely high probability this turns out just like the birthday parade last June:
1. Huge costs
2. Low crowds
3. Crowding out general tourism
Wait, so Capitol Riverfront BID rebranded to Navy Yard BID? Did they finally resolve their beef with the SW BID over disputed territory at Buzzard Point?
We're also coming up on the 6 year anniversary of the date when a barrel of oil cost negative dollars. That was fun.
As an elder millennial I remember the rush to hybrids and fuel efficient vehicles around 2008 when a similar spike happened.
Now American car companies don't even make sedans anymore. Just gas guzzler trucks and SUVs.
Looking forward to the take havers finally coming to realize the destruction of the federal workforce a year ago just created a ton of unemployment and flooded the limited job market with highly educated and trained candidates.
Ah, yes, the invaluable wisdom of the markets.
Years into this and the general failure of economic reporting to differentiate in layman terms the difference between inflation, deflation, and price levels is driving me up a wall.
360k more people unemployed.
I saw that article posted on FB and it had, no joke, 100x more laughing emoji reactions than all the others combined. I think that's the equivalent of a ratio over there.
If corporate income tax collection had kept up with 1960s levels, companies would be paying $620 billion more a year in taxes. In my latest, I ask: what did we get in return? Not wages, not benefits, but record profits and a growing public disgust with companies.
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
I continue to scream into the void that inbound international tourism contributes to the ~trade surplus~. A thing people told me is extremely important to the health of the nation.
Closer to home, 2026 should be a windfall year for DC tourism, with America's 250th being a huge free marketing campaign. Instead local companies are fighting for their lives to even survive through this year.
I continue to scream into the void that inbound international tourism contributes to the trade surplus - a thing we allegedly are supposed to care a lot about. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/t...
There's a video that got fed to me on YouTube about why Minnesota now produces more NHL players than Michigan and the conclusion is more or less the same.
My all-time favorite Smithsonian exhibit was about the rise of smoking and how doctors, dentists and nurses used to get paid to recommend certain cigarette brands. Absurd in hindsight. Totally normal in the moment.
There will be the same exhibit at some point about gambling/prediction companies.
Price of 19 days of National Guard covers a full year of Circulator service.
I can't believe nobody wanted to buy Ford's electric "cars".
[Checks available models]
Oh.